And I've lost who I am
by Cocolores
Summary: Letters remaining unread. George Weasley trying to work through the hardest thing in his life.
1. A world so hollow

A world so hollow

' _One' – somehow that is a word I never really applied to myself. 'One' is so… singular. And that I am not. Not at all. I'm not an 'I'; I am not a 'one'. I'm part of a 'we'; I am part of a 'two'. Of a twosome that never should have been broken apart. Like, ever. We were so happy. We were fine, we were great! And I… well, I'm not. Not happy. Not fine. Not great. I'm just lost. I've never been good at being by myself. Gladly I almost never had to be. By myself, I mean._

 _Weird, isn't it, how quickly a 'we' can become an 'I'? In the blink of an eye, the split second of a last laugh. Well... at least you died with a smile on your face. I wanna do that, too, you know? Well, not right now, how could I, but… someday. I wanna die with a smile on my face, just like you. Sounds peaceful, doesn't it? Too peaceful for what really happened. But hey, at least you went down battling some Death Eaters and did not die of a boring old sickness or being too old or something as profane as that. See, I'm trying to stay positive. Even though you left me forever – and what a harsh word that one is, forever! – I try. I'm really trying._

 _It's tough, you know? But what can I do, they're all expecting me to get well soon, to go back to being a prankster, to joking and laughing. I know they do. I see the way they are looking at me, trying not to burst into tears because it's just me they're seeing, not us. Mum still puts a plate out for you every time she sets the table. Nobody dares to sit in your chair, nobody dares to crack a joke, and nobody dares to even smile. Sometimes I think they really are waiting for me to break the silence surrounding the family. But I can't. Not now. I don't know if I'll ever be able to. It's so strange, being home when home isn't even home anymore. I hate sleeping in our old room, seeing your bed, all of your stuff. You were the messy one, by the way. I never really noticed until now, but my side of the room is way neater than yours. Well, technically it's my side of the room now, too, isn't it? Well, I don't want it. I don't want any of it. And I especially don't want to think of things as 'yours' and 'mine', when it was always ours._

 _And I hate thinking of me as… well, as me. Not as us. I want it to still be us. Sitting at our little kitchen table above the shop, plotting our next big hit, planning new strategies to make the life of Filch as miserable as possible with our merchandise, or even just bickering about whose turn it is to cook tonight. It would be your turn, by the way. It's Tuesday. But from now on it will be my turn to cook on Tuesdays, and on Thursdays and Saturdays, too. I'll be cooking pretty much every day when I get home to Diagon Alley. Or not eat at all. I don't know yet. I don't know anything about what I'll do when I get back to the shop. Or if I will go back there at all._

 _I don't know much these days, you see? I feel empty, I feel weird. And I don't even know why I'm writing to you, and maybe I should have started this whole shebang with 'Dear Fred, how are you? How's being dead treating you?', but… well. We've never been great with pleasantries, have we? All I know is that I miss you like crazy, but on the other hand – who doesn't? The Burrow is crowded with people, but it's quieter than it has ever been in here. Everyone is sitting around the kitchen table miserably, whispering to one another and suddenly stopping when I enter the room. As I said, no one is ever sitting in your chair, which makes it even weirder, this visible void makes me feel so… so hateful. Sometimes I think that maybe I should go up to your chair and just plonk myself down on it and act like that's totally normal – which it is, it's just a chair, after all! – but I can't. Somehow I can't bring myself to do it. Instead I never sit down at the table at all. Just get some food out of the fridge and retreat to the quiet sanctuary of our room. Hah, our room, an oasis of peace and quiet – who would have guessed that? And now I'm almost laughing, and it feels weird and good and traitorous and so much needed._


	2. Not at all like talking to you

2 – Not at all like talking to you

 _Dear Fred,_

 _how are you? How's being dead treating you?_

 _See, this time I got the beginning right. Yay for me. Anyways, here I am, writing to you again. It feels surreal, and, no matter what Ginny says, it does so not feel "like talking to him in a way" – I mean, come on, where are all the witty remarks, all the sarcastic little quips, and who's gonna finish all my_

 _See. Not at all like talking to you._

 _And why, then, you might ask, am I doing this? Why am I sitting here, dipping my quill in ink, putting it to parchment and spewing my heart out to someone who will never, ever read this? I don't know, to be honest. Ginny came into our room a few days ago, sat down on the windowsill and told me, carefully avoiding looking at your (still unmade) bed, that she's writing to you every day, and that these letters really help her cope. She sends them out with Errol, and he never came back with one still attached to his leg, so she feels like somehow you are receiving and reading them. Our little sister, always the dreamer, eh? I'm smiling tearfully now, if you must know, because this is naïve and heartbreaking and clever all at once. We taught her well, Ginny. She's the only one who's actually talking to me and looking into my eyes while doing so. Bless her, really. Without her I might have gone insane. It's quite tiring having everyone avoiding looking me in the eye, or to even address me without that certain sharp intake of breath that indicates how much we all lost when we lost you._

 _You dying really sucked all the life out of our family. Mum's so sad that I can't even be in the same room with her for more than a few minutes. She was so strong in battle, even after you… left. She was stronger than any of us, still is, but it breaks my heart seeing her chopping vegetables all day to feed the mourning crowd living under her roof now, always blaming onions for her tears, just so she can keep up the illusion of strength. She thinks she has to be strong for us, but her eyes lost all their life, she's not eating, and every time she puts a plate out for you, she turns white as a sheet and grabs it, without a word, to put it back in the cupboard. But we all see how her heart's breaking in these moments, and we all choose to ignore it, because our own hearts are just as broken._

 _I think that's what hurts the most, seeing how badly you are missed. My pain is unbearable on its own, but adding theirs to it… I can't stand it, I can't really think about it, or my brain will implode. It feels like we all died a little. Dad… he stopped being Dad. He's always home now, never going to work, never leaving his armchair anymore. He stopped reading the papers, too, only uses it to hide his tears from us. Quite the silent sobber, Dad. Unlike Ginny, who cries openly (and snotty, if I might say so) and isn't ashamed of her feelings. As I said, we taught her well._

 _Percy took it the hardest, though. He keeps mumbling "should have been me" under his breath, which everyone chooses to ignore as much as Mums breaking heart and Dads silent tears, since no one knows what to say to him. And of course it shouldn't have been him, Merlin's beard!, but it shouldn't have been you, either. It never should have been you._

 _I think I might have to end this letter for now, it's getting hard to see through my (silent, but snotty) tears, but I guess I will keep writing to you for a while, it doesn't really help, but… well, it doesn't not help, either._

 _I miss you, Freddie. I miss us._


	3. Yesterday I died

3 –

 _Yesterday I died. Your funeral just killed me. Just the word on its own, funeral, it feels so strange, so… hollow. I mean, you were already buried days ago, with all the others who died in the Battle of Hogwarts. The Battle of Hogwarts – this is how they all call it, you know. I call it… I don't call it anything at all. I just don't talk about it, or even think about it most times. Anyways, a few days ago they held a big, huge service for all of the Heroes of Hogwarts (another stupid name for the simplest thing in the world: people dying), but yesterday our family and friends had our own little ceremony to finally say goodbye to you. It was the hardest, the worst thing I ever witnessed. Mum broke down completely and had to be taken into the house, and we still heard her sobbing to the tent right on the far side of the garden where we had assembled to bid our final goodbyes to you. Sounds quite formal, eh? That is how Dad kept calling it, bidding our final goodbyes. Doesn't he realize that there WAS no final goodbye for any of us except Percy, Ron, Harry and Hermione? They all saw you die, they heard your last words, saw your last laugh, and I actually envy them so much. It's strange and horribly wrong, wanting to have been by your side when you died, but there's no one who should have been with you but me. I don't even remember how we were separated, but somehow we were, and I can't remember the last thing I said to you, or the last thing you said to me, and I hate that. And I hate them. They were with you, and they didn't protect you, they didn't bring you back to me. All they brought was your broken body. I looked into your eyes, but you were gone, and that quirky little smile on your face made it even worse. You looked so damn alive, Freddie, except for your eyes, they were dead, and you were dead and I wasn't with you. I lost you and Percy and Ron found you and were with you and I wasn't. I'm never gonna be able to live with that, you know? And it doesn't help at all that Ron said you were happy about Percy being back, that you were laughing with him in your last seconds, because you were supposed to be with ME, laughing with ME, fighting with ME by your side, and I wasn't there and now you won't be with me ever again. I lie awake at night, every night, because in my dreams you are alive, and it feels so real, and when I open my eyes I'm just greeted by your stupid unmade bed with those stupid green sheets and your stupid smell still lingering in the air, as if you had just gotten up a minute ago, and every fucking day I am reminded that you'll never get up again, that your smell will fade one day and that I'll forget about the way your smile was all lazy in the mornings, your voice all hoarse when you just got up, yelling that you were the firstborn and therefore the right to be fist the bathroom belonged to you as well… I hated that, you know, and now I miss it so much it hurts._


	4. And I've lost who I am

4 – And I've lost who I am

 _Freddie,_

 _I have not written in a while, I'm sorry. No, I'm not, why should I be sorry? You are not reading these stupid letters; are not expecting me to write to you or anything as stupid as that, so… I'm not sorry. I just didn't feel like writing for a while. Didn't feel like doing anything, to be honest. Have been lying in bed wallowing in self-pity for quite some time now. They all left in the past few days, your mourners, one after another, so the house is really quiet right now. Well, it wasn't a roaring party in here in the first place, with everyone being bummed about you being dead and all, but… you know. It's almost eerily quiet now. The family's still here, of course they are, they live here, after all, but the Weasleys are a quiet bunch at the moment. No laughter, still no laughter, can you imagine that, Freddie? The Burrow without laughter feels lifeless, lost. Just like me. I cried when I was looking in the mirror this morning. Not because I saw you in there, as Ginny suspected when she found me bawling my eyes out while brushing my teeth, but because I didn't. I don't look like us anymore; we have never looked like that. I lost us, I lost you, and I lost myself._

 _Big, huge words, eh? 'I lost myself' – but it's true. You're gone, and I've lost who I am when I lost you. I was ever always "and George" as well as you always were "Fred and" – we were some kind of a unit, you and me. And I think it's very distinctive, the "and"-part. I was "and George" – I was your suffix, your second-in-command, your partner in crime. And you were "Fred and", my prefix, my inspiration, my leader, my partner. I never felt subordinate to you, never, it was just the natural order of things – you were the loud one, the bold one, the brave one. Sure, most people wouldn't have noticed much difference – but that was because they never really bothered to look beyond our "and". No one in this whole world knew you like I did, and no one knew me like you did. And that's why I've lost who I am. Who I was. I don't know who I'll be without you. If… when I get past the worst shock and start readjusting my life, I mean. It feels quite incomprehensible to me that my life will go on, as just my life, not ours. Of course, maybe one day we would have parted ways in some kind of way, like getting married and having children and not living together anymore, but… there was always still time._

 _It's been 26 nights now that I slept without you in the bed next to mine, Freddie. 26 nights I spent listening to the screaming silence in the room, yearning for your snores and snuffles and laughter. Yeah, you laughed in your sleep, did I ever tell you about that? I can't remember, and it hurts that I can't, I want to remember everything I can about you, about us, and at the same time I long to forget. It gets kind of desperate sometimes, this longing to forget you ever existed, and I'm so damn ashamed that I even think that way, but… sometimes I can't help myself. And then I hate myself for thinking that, and thank everything that's out there that you were here with me, that you were my twin, that we were us. Even if it was only for such a short amount of time. I had you, I had us, I had everything._

 _Freddie, I hate you. And I love you. More than anything._


End file.
